


Bloodthirsty

by leechailatten



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, M/M, Mild Blood, Mild Sexual Content, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-15
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:54:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,929
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26483764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leechailatten/pseuds/leechailatten
Summary: With no news about his boyfriend after an overseas schollarship, Jaehyun started fearing that he had seen the last of him and he was doomed to lose his faith in love. Nonetheless, he appeared at his door the least expected day at the break of down. Or at least, it looked like him.
Relationships: Jung Yoonoh | Jaehyun/Kim Dongyoung | Doyoung
Kudos: 59





	Bloodthirsty

Ever since the spring started, there was something that didn’t let Jaehyun sleep well. 

The loneliness creeped in his chest, as the cavity was empty of anything that wasn’t the faint, constant pulse of his heart and a little bit of hope. 

He had never been the kind of person that gives up on his goals easily, inside of him there was the blood of a fighter, and accordingly, he had been pacing everyday, moving forward without thinking that there wasn't anything else to look for anymore, because if he did so, then there was nothing else for him to rely on. 

His friends were still there, around him, doing their life and trying to cheer him up as if his capacity for responding wasn't half the width it used to be.

He knew for sure that they- and specially Mark, who lived with him and watched him wither a bit more everyday- had started to be scared of him walking in circles, carving a ditch on the floor as he went round and round, listless, dragging his feet. He had tried, really tried, to ease their preoccupation bringing his soft smiles back after a while; and even joining them in all his adventures going to the fair or for a night stroll close to the river to eat instant noodles from cosy cups, watching the lights of the bridges come with all their colors, but still sometimes, his sigh was deep enough to lift the blind far up enough for them to look through the slit and see that Jaehyun still missed him. 

It was as if he had caught a bad habit of feeling dazed, lost in some sort of stupor that clogged his mind when certain topics came out and chaining him to a state of numbness that blocked ideas he didn't want to think off. 

Romanticism, in the 21th century, was nearly dead, but it could be said that Jaehyun had a prototype, an ideal type of person to date that resided in his mind, but that his friends were aware of already. 

Jaehyun looked the kind of good that had half of the people that knew thinking he could have anyone he wanted, and so that he would take an advantage of it when it came handy, but there was nothing more far fetched than that. 

He was into waiting. And waiting and waiting until someone different appeared and made his world turn around, and know with a hundred percent certainty that he was the one for him. That made his heart skip a beat everytime their eyes met and that could sooth him with a word.

He liked the kind of person that is sensitive, that enjoys embracing their emotions and soft dates at a terrace. Someone whose face doesn't crumble when there's an exchange of corny lines in between them and that lives for those little things like remembering the name of his cologne to smell it in a store later on and think that it was spot on Jaehyun’s scent. 

He had always had an idealized vision in his mind, maybe a little old-fashioned, but he couldn’t change the way he was. 

Yet, he had come to know that there's always another half for everyone, no matter how hopelessly romantic you are or how high the level of idealization of your love education has gone without nothing to stop it to hush it. 

Kim Doyoung embodied all of it, he had proved his belief right and that's precisely why he had stated, all of the time their friends have suggested any activity related to meeting someone new, that he knew he would return. 

"Why didn't you ask him to stay?" Asked Yuta in one of those days of absence, just lightly, suddenly, not really putting a lot of importance on a casual question. 

There had been a complicated choreography of glances between the group of friends in which half of them blamed Yuta for some kind of oblivion regarding Jaehyun and the considerate rhythm of selflessness he could acquire when it was about a loved one. The other half shied away from looking at Jaehyun directly, and the remaining ones, waited for the conclusive argument of their pal. 

"I mean, don't get me wrong" had tried the Japanese, aiming for something that excused the raw sound of his intermission. "But you look miserable not having him around, and he had the intention of being someone to you, so why did you hide from him that you'd be in pain until he is back" 

"Because he wanted to go. It was important for him, his studies are important for him and it's just a bunch of months that he is going to be out"

"What about what you want, Jae?" 

"Yuta…" had called Johnny, frowning, as if Jaehyun was a child that can't take some blows to his feelings from time to time 

"No, really. Watch him become lifeless through the three months that have passed. If they are a couple, can't Doyoung consider him as well?" 

"Not if Jaehyun doesn't spare him a sight of it" had added Mark, reasonably.

"That's why I asked"

"It doesn't matter, he'll be back" 

That's what he kept repeating. 

He will be back to him, there wasn't a motive to believe that a perfect someone wouldn't be back to him as if it wasn't a logical fact that something so good wasn't ditched so simply. 

When he first met Doyoung, something had drawn him to his vision. He remembered how he was leaning slightly upon the table, his hand tucked under his chin and the golden rim of his glasses throwing a wobbly gleam on the pages of the book he was reading. 

It was simple, just a boy occupying his seat in the library, among the other books and students that crowded that simple place that Jaehyun could see through the window when he walked past the building on his way to his favorite vinyl store, but it made Jaehyun feel like there was something special about him. 

He didn’t call love at first, he had never been that naïve. 

He was just attracted to the limbless of his hands when he caught him flipping a page and his long, slim fingers caressed the paper with the loveliest looking touch of them all. He recognised the gentle feel around him on how the air molded to him so very lightly and with all it didn’t make him any insipid because the winged sharpness of his eyes talked about wit. 

Eventually, the human tendency of being dragged towards our favorite pieces the most had made Jaehyun take an interest in that stark establishment with the window. 

It happened to be an interesting place to visit when he entered finally, an interdisciplinary cafe with a small library and a book order service as well as working space with free internet access. He had explored the new environment with genuine engagement, thinking how there was no wonder of his special engrossment in the particular man if the place itself seemed so comforting.

Drifting towards the bookcases, he learned that it was a specialized collection of books, magazines and so on, which main theme society, culture and education. In that field, he wasn’t so much of an expert, he was a musicologist. 

His absentminded look should have been painted all over him, because the man that he had been looking at day by day for longer than a month, had materialized by his side and given him a moderate smile as he reached for some concrete volume. 

_“Do you need a recommendation on what to start with?”_

His voice was a couple of octaves lower than what Jaehyun had expected, and it vibrated with aplomb as it sunk in him for the first time.

Even so, when he heard his laugh for the first time after weeks visiting the cafe and learning about psychology of learning- as repetitive as it sounded- he proved that his signature sound wasn’t only resolute but vague. His giggles were so very messy, everytime, so inviting to life and loud, and they were often irregular because Doyoung swallowed the air and spreaded all over a heady smile that made him look younger and cuter. 

By the time Jaehyung had collected in his mind all of those details that appeared when something sparked the need of laughing in Doyoung, he had already fallen for him and for the way the man loved him back. 

It would be hard to explain to someone from outside Jaehyun’s bodily limits, but there was something in Doyoung that made him feel safe and at home, something that made him really happy. 

And perhaps it was true that he should have been earnest with him, told him not to go and leave him in a tense wait of hour differences, lack of warmth and silence, but he just couldn't. He hated to think about himself like the one that held Doyoung down instead of giving him wings to a happy, desired life.

With Doyoung he had always taken things slow, and had just done it at their own pace, when they were bound to happen. They had spent so many time doing nothing but to read, drink coffee and flirt so frugally that it might had got anyone else tired or questioning if they were really up to something; they had kissed for the first time just one day out of nowhere, once the tension of sharing too much with him had pooled in Jaehyun’s stomach.

It's just that a lot of people believed in the rushed aspect of the heart, thinking they could imitate time, which carries on with an even flow like an always working metronome. 

Jaehyun knew that thinking like that was useless. For more than he wished hard and harder that Doyoung ditched the months long scholarship in a foreign country overseas, there wouldn’t be a miraculous event that shortened the duration. 

It wasn’t like he hated waiting or had a rampant impatience living among his personal traits, but it really seemed that months had become longer in his absence and made a sinister sound when days grinded like stones falling in a sack of flint. 

From the subtle numbness, he moved on to the lethargic melancholy where his energy started decaying day by day, losing the trace of Doyoung. When he was sleeping, Jaehyun woke up and went to school, and when Doyoung had time, Jaehyun was finishing his day. 

At certain point, past the first four months, he had started doubting if there was really a possibility of screwing up what they had built in so many evenings of intimacy. 

He refused to think like that, but he felt abandoned.

His roommate broke the silence, sounding fed up. “Come on, Jaehyun, this is going too far!”

He looks up from his mug. The soggy cookie had broken and half of it was floating on his milk and melting in a chocolaty patch on its surface. He stared at Mark a bit too confused, not really knowing where his indignation came from, since they hadn’t been talking a lot during breakfast. Maybe that was the thing. 

“What’s going too far?”

“Your despair, dude. It’s like looking at a forgotten potato at the back of our cupboard, that’s what you are becoming” 

“It’s…”

“Going to be over soon when he gets back, yeah. He better come running to you as soon as the heckin’ plane lands” 

He was scowling at his toast. 

“What has he done for y’all hate him so much?”

“None of us hate him, Jae, we know how good you work together but that’s the problem. You like him that bad but can’t tell him how broken you are without him, and he doesn’t stop to think about your loneliness and buys the few words of comfort you have for him every week” His words stung, but he knew he looked heartsick for real. 

“It’s not his fault”

“It’s not anyone’s fault! I see you try hard to live like a human being everyday, I know you keep seeing us, going out and all of that jazz, but things are not sitting right. I want you to be happy, dude, but we both know this is not getting better lately, and if you refuse to flip the page…”

Jaehyun sighed, grudgingly. 

“I don’t want to flip the page because there’s no need to flip the page. The scholarship group is coming back in two days and then we are going to be over all of this” he interrupted him, getting up with his unfinished mug before the conversation could get him deeper or he could think about any of these things becoming true and leaving him in the lurch. He dumped the dirty dishes on the sink and opened the water to was the leftovers off before they solidified, but then he rushed out of the flat.

He didn’t even have much to do, it was a Friday morning and until school periods were over, theis students wouldn’t be coming in his classroom besides the few college ones, but he didn’t want to keep talking or thinking. 

Two days were nothing in front of the months he had already gone through, he would see Doyoung and have a romantic night together, they would talk about his anecdotes while he was out, the new foods he had tried, the things he had learned, and how much he had missed him too. They would kiss until they were tired of it, if that was possible, and end everything with sparking, passionate fireworks. 

Uneventfully, that couple of days felt like the slowest of them all. 

But the world seemed to have some more downsides in store for the man. Almost as if everyone was trying to prove him wrong and tell him that his dreams were just that, a vain hope, something unattainable that wouldn’t come back. 

As Doyoung's classmates came back from their trip, Jaehyun brightened up and their friends had the hope that it was the light at the end of the tunnel. 

But not a call, not even a single text with "i'm here, my love" to hold on. 

Nothing. 

He thought he might have messed up the date in his brain, but there wasn't a lot of doubts that something else was odd when this or that familiar face from Doyoung's team started showing up in the city a few days after. 

He wavered, and his trust faltered, making him write several texts to his -growing infamous- lover almost falling into a hurry already. 

With the irresolute conversation that appeared to never be checked by the receptor, the pain came back a little bit sharper. And physically, there was nothing that impeded Jaehyun to function normally, but his appetite wasn't as strong and the way his lungs took in the air felt heavier. At least like that, the sensations had returned to put his body back in motion and make him act like someone that has a soul inside his body.

Jaehyun wasn't soulless, if so, he was one of the people that had most faith in that intangible element of himself. He didn’t want to join the parade of people that swipe through a million profiles and has countless first dates that end up being as meaningless as a piano piece without the piano. 

He wanted to make it all make sense, have a reason to understand why someone would vanish, what was his failure to be deemed to be lonely. 

He knew from the start that it wasn't easy to have a soft heart in a fast world like this, maybe he truly was old-fashioned and a bit outdated, but he couldn't be the only one on the Earth's surface to dream big when it came to love. 

"Have you tried to phone him too?" Tried out Yuta. 

"A thousand times. He is not picking up. I'm worried"

"He is ghosting you, man, I'm sorry but that's what it is" 

"Mark, have some tact, he is going through it"

"I'm sorry, really, but that's what it looks like" 

"Give him a chance" offered the japanese, maybe honestly or maybe trying to lighten up the situation of severe blues radiating from Jaehyun and swallowing all the table up. "Is not like Jae was a one night stand for him, you know how he has always treated him right" 

“More than right” added the involved one. 

“Yeah, they have supported each other for a long while now, and they have an impressive fixation with each other, so maybe it’s just a problem with his ticket or something, I don’t believe the Kim Doyoung I knew would just hide from Jaehyun even if he wanted to break up, which I doubt”

Jaehyun listened to these words the most. That was all what he wanted to hold onto, believing in the existence of that kind of love, having some faith in it and valuing it for real. 

Until he opened his laptop once he came back from the cafeteria where he had spen the afternoon with his friends. Then is what he desired to fall into some kind of amnesia and practice the act of forgetting that Doyoung existed. 

He just wanted to find the contact of some classmate and ask them if everything was okay, but there was no need, the college front page was all over the place, announcing his disappearance as if it was the latest hit in theaters. 

" _Honorific student Kim Doyoung, 24, missing during overseas scholarship in the United States. Authorities are currently investigating the case, but from Seoul National University, we want to send our strength to the family and friends_ ".

Well, as a participant of any of those collectives, Jaehyun would have liked to find out in a more sensitive way than reading such a headline in the university's website besides the vivid picture of his boyfriend. 

If it was possible to suffer a shock in the spot, he would have said that that was what he was going through. 

He felt that his memories with him were turning into sharp pieces of crystal as they shattered for him. 

Jaehyun didn't even feel like crying, because something was crossed in his throat and was clogging it. His body responded only to take the laptop in his arms like a baby and storm out of his room towards the living room, where Mark was texting on his phone while the TV went on in the background, to plant the device in front of his roommate just because he couldn't believe what he was reading and he needed someone else to check. 

"What's going on!?" He mumbled, between mad and broken. 

With not little concern, Mark grabbed his glasses and put them on to scan the lines of words in the screen. For the way his eyebrows knitted and he looked up at Jaehyun after being done with the computer, softening his eyes with a shine of remorse, Jaehyun knew that he was right in everything he understood for the bulletin board. 

“Oh… Jaehyun…” 

“How is it fair that I find out like this?” he spat out of his mouth, voice threatening to break in the next second of their conversation. “Couldn’t anybody call me up to tell me?”

“I’m sorry that I said… what I said. Come on, they would find him for sure”

“This ain’t happening”

“Bro, sit down” 

As much of an advice it had been, Jaehyun followed his words guided by the heaviness of his body, flopping on the couch like a dead weight. 

“What am I supposed to do now?” he mumbled. 

“I don’t know, but at this point everything, your health, is beyond me. I want to help you but I feel like I tried everything already and there’s no words of wisdom that can come from me and make it better. Maybe you should find yourself professional help”

“Professional help?”

“Yeah, a therapist or something”

“Do I look that helpless?” asked Jaehyun, not really knowing how to take the things that his friend was telling him. 

“Is not about a level, I think, but you just really seem lost”

“I will think about it”

“Will you? You just sounded like you were lying” Jaehyun glowered at his younger friend, wondering if it was so easy to catch him when he wasn’t completely honest. “Why is it so bad? If we need doctors for body injuries why not go to one if your mind is in pain?”

“My mind is not in pain, it’s my heart”

“Same thing”

“Not for me, really. I don’t want to let go”

“Sometimes letting go feels better”

“And when I give up and admit he is gone, then what is left? He takes me too high to give up on the feeling, and now that I know it’s not him who made the choice to leave, you want me to willingly let go off his hand?” 

To everything, there’s a boiling point, and Jaehyun had touched him with his hands in that moment, when everything seemed just so unreal that he was not the same person anymore. 

He got up from the sofa again, and after brushing his fingers through his hair, he decided his next move would be to grab his jacket and pull it over himself while Mark stared at him perplexed and worried. 

“What are you doing? Where are you going?” 

“Out. For a walk. Maybe I’ll stop by some bar and have a shot” 

“At this hour? You have to work tomorrow”

“And what’s the point?”

“The point is that you are not like this”

“I don’t care”

“Getting shit-faced is not going to solve anything!”

“Staying here thinking about it doesn’t help either!”

“Eventually you would have to come back home, Jaehyun, and things would still be here because you can’t change them like this”

“I don’t want to change them, I want to forget them!”

That was his last statement before he went out and gave himself up into the dark night. 

Is not like he went out to drink until he could lose consciousness, but he truly felt so numb that the cold wasn’t really sinking into his bones. The city around him was the same, in motion, nothing stopped because of his particular preoccupations or traumas, everything moved with the same cold, aloof. That’s what he felt like, or more likely, what he wasn’t able to feel. 

He paced without direction, out of focus, and maybe a little bit too close to the road so the constant passing of the traffic close to him, with their burst of wind and sometimes the loud noise of their horns, could raise the adrenaline bar in his body and take something to his booming system so there was something that could divert to his veins. 

Maybe doing something scary would make him wake up from the nightmare, as when you trip during a dream and you wake up because of the scary feeling of the fall. 

The stablishments at his sides were mostly locked up for the night, windows black and lights off. Only some other places that offered a hole for people to be careless were still shining with their lights and panels, but everything was just a blur. 

Knowing it was just a pretending game, he went to his bed and slept the night away until it was too late for Mark to not shake his head at his knocked out body on the bed and give a call to the music academy to notify that Jaehyun couldn’t go that day because he wasn’t feeling well. Sleeping, after all, made him able to rest without thinking. 

Nonetheless, his subconscious mind still hunted him as well. 

In his dreams there was still a trace of Doyoung, entering in his room without having to open the door. His presence could sleep through the thick walls and cling onto his bed. In the night his eyes burnt on Jaehyun, and made his chest rise and fall with an agitated breath that embarrassed him, inflamed with the keening of a lover.

He could feel the weight of him on his bosom when he leaned over and his breath crushing over him with the warmth of his mouth and the smell of his always neat clothes. 

He heard his friends whispering his name and trying to divert his attention from the man that came to visit him, saying things that he only paid attention to with a quarter of his mind. It was like a gentle quiet wisp of wind that warned him of Doyoung's unstable presence and of how hurting he was. He couldn't care and, seeing him again was far more comforting than the advising words about an assassin. Assassin. He was sure he heard someone using that word. 

His breath was becoming ragged out of nowhere, as his mind eased out from the state of shock that seeing him at first caused him. 

He called his name once, twice and more. 

Doyoung. Doyoung. _Doyoung_. 

And Doyoung stared back at him, standing at the foot of his bed with his white shirt drenched in blood, darkening in patches and clinging to his damp skin.

Waking up from this is what finally caused Jaehyun to whimper in pain, salty tears tracing glossy paths over his cheeks as his breath rushed and something oppressed his heart. 

It wasn't adrenaline, but it served him the same. It was a quiet weeping, his lashes heavy with the gathered drops, making him shiver under the quilt of his bed with the muffled sobs until he was tired enough to fall asleep for another while to leave the rawest part of hi sheart to the side. 

When he woke up midday, he was barely in the mood to go out of his room, but once more, he challenged himself to breathe and so he moved to the living room. If that’s what destiny had in storage for him, then Jaehyun guessed he would have to get over it and try again, with another person maybe, even though the mere thought of that made him scrunch his nose in disgust, but he would recover, or so they said. 

Too cruel of a fate, in his opinion, but fate nonetheless. 

As he crossed the open threshold, Mark stared at him knowingly, but in silence, looking up from the plate of fried whatever he was consuming. There wasn’t reproach in his eyes, he wasn’t trying to accuse the older one of doing exactly what he advised him to not do. 

Thankfully, Mark was plenty of sympathetic. 

“I’m hungry” muttered Jaehyun as a starter. 

His roommate stared down at his bowl briefly, and then returned to look at Jaehyun putting on his more comforting smile posible. 

“There’s more rice in the rice cooker, and in the fridge there are lunch boxes that my mother sent. There is soy-braised beef, it’s like super tasty”

“She is the best”

“Yeah, she is” 

He talked because silence was a way too uncomfortable friend to stay with, after the rather brutal night of coming out from the shocked state and moving into a distressing awareness. 

He settled on the chair with a plate full of food, his thoughts moving sluggishly as he mixed it together with a spoon and started eating. 

"How are you feeling?" 

The appreciation of the question, for Jaehyun, comes from all the dare it must have taken for the boy. 

He chuckled listlessly, with no energy to wash it away because, even if he had overslept, he was still spent. 

"I wonder that, too. Ran over by the situation, lonely, untouched…" 

Mark cleared his throat at the mention of such specific things, especially the last one, that made him feel rather uncomfortable. "You wanna hang out?" 

"No, I don't feel like going out. It's not the same kind of loneliness. I know I have you, guys, that's so amazing" he mentioned, making Marks turn a tad brighter with happiness. "It’s another type of craving, but I don't know how to manage it. I can't brush it off without seeking it from another person but I can't stop thinking 'what if he is found, comes back, and I have run to someone else?', I don't even know if there can be someone else for me" 

"Well, out in this world there are like seven billion people"

"And just one home for each" 

Mark hummed, knowing that there was a very low possibility of making Jaehyun turn down his belief of a one and only soulmate ever. 

"Okay, but I'm going out with Jungwoo later, are you okay?"

"It’s okay, I can take care of myself, I think I may sleep today away, I'm mentally exhausted" 

"Yeah, but breath and have some food and-"

"Mark" he cut, before the youngest could go off, lifting the spoon in his hand with a bunch of meat on it. "I'll be fine" 

Theoretically that was the truth, he was a functioning adult and had been even through the months of solitude, he knew how to survive; the problem tilted more towards the quality of time spent. He knew he could be happier, that he had been happier before, and that knowledge was what scared him the most. 

Because what if he couldn't get any better? If he had been given the gift of love but it wasn't permanent and he was doomed to carry on knowing that it wouldn't come back.

He was so taken aback by that idea, that he really tried to dodge it as bad as he could possibly do.

He didn’t know how long did it take for him to finish his meal, due to the muddled pass of time once Mark had left, but he guessed that he was a bit lagged in comparison to the average timing of society. 

He washed the dishes, anyways, and then went to his room as he had confessed he would. The day progressed, uneventfully while he was lazying around and keeping his mind out of the game with silly youtube videos and a TV show he wasn't really paying attention to. 

He was dozing off intermittently, hearing when Mark came back with Jungwoo and their chatter in the back of his mind. They talked for a while, and then they were quiet for another important while that made Jaehyun chuckle ironically. 

Considering his lack of attention in the course of real events going on around him, he could picture that it was rather late when Jungwoo finally left, just because outside his window, the city's sky was darkening once more and the buildings adorned the view with their squares of light where windows were supposed to be. 

There was some dull, distant and muffled sound that was probably produced by Mark playing music while cooking dinner, loudly interrupted by the ring of the doorbell. Jaehyun supposed, then, that Jungwoo should have forgotten something in their house and had came back for it in no time but Mark's voice resounded across the hallway as he called for his roommate. 

He sighed, getting up from his bed to go and know what was going on to require his presence during a moment like this. 

Halfway through the narrow hallway of their apartment, Jaehyun’s attention came back in entirely, being sucked into his body with a hammering force that almost nailed him to the wooden floor of the corridor. 

Mark was standing by the open door, looking back at Jaehyun just as lost as he was, if not more, and under the threshold, with his silhouette cut against the break of dawn in the city, Doyoung stood. 

Over the course of seven to eight months, Doyong had changed a bit into someone a bit more pale and mature looking. As stupid at it might sound, Jaehyun was re-struck by his beauty once more, as if it was the first time he saw him through the clear crystal of the cafe’s window. It was the same Doyoung, he knew, but at the same time, he wasn’t. 

His face was still sweet as he remembered, but it had hardened too. His eyes were a dark color of ebony that almost reflected a navy shine with the light of their housing’s led lamps, which melted and flowed into Jaehyun’s own caramel eyes as they tried to catch up the entire frame of his loved one presenting himself back. 

“Jaehyun, my love”

His timbre always made Jaehyun shiver, and that time wasn’t an exception, not by a long chalk. It made his enthusiasm rise and a wide smile surge on his face from the bottom of his heart. He was surprised, but beyond that, he was so pleased to see him, renewed again. 

Mark looked down to the floor, as if finding the floor tiles very interesting out of a sudden, just because he was certainly uncomfortable being in between that reunion, while Doyoung was gazing as his roommate’s face with languid and burning eyes. 

“Doyoung? Sweet fuck, come in!” 

Doyoung gave a firm step forwards, crossing the line of the door. 

“I think I should leave you two to talk about your things and all of that” mumbled Mark, sliding towards the hall from which Jaehyun had appeared previously and abandoning the couple to their own necessities as he slipped through the door of his dormitory. 

Doyoung softly smiled back, lips looking redder than Jaehyun’s broken memories had been telling him, maybe to save him from more misery, but as he did, something clicked inside his chest and fell into place. The way he craved their touch was absolutely insane and made his body shiver as if touched by a cold night breeze, getting rid of the measured timing in which he used to approach things when it came to Doyoung.

However, he swiftly, dance-like, gets closer to Jaehyun with no reluctances, stopping just a couple of strides away from him, tilting his head back barely a bit to look at his eyes. His hands sat faintly at his shoulders and then seeped down gently caressing his arms. 

“How much I have missed you”

“Really?” sang Jaehyun, flirty. 

Nothing impeded him to believe in the hardness of times where they were apart, but his shamelessness in front of him was never too much. 

“Of course! Is that you haven’t missed me at all?” he inquired, with a warning note to his next glance that made Jaehyun shudder. Then his hand touched with Jaehyun’s own, and their fingers laced as Doyoung pulled them up to his carmine lips to press a gentle kiss against his knuckles. 

What was that new thing in Doyoung that made him look prudentially more enigmatic than he used to be? It might be the hair, where he had lost the mild coloration of a wheat-like tone in favour to his natural black or the prominent aspect of his veins and tendons tensing on his forearms as they showed freely under the rolled up sleeves of his black shirt. 

Whatever it was, it didn’t repel Jaehyun in the slightest. 

He was more… more… forward. 

“A little too much and a little too often” 

“Oh, love, I’m so sorry. But I don’t want to leave your side anymore, I have been craving you so bad, so bad...”

The last two words come by with a whispered tone that doesn’t help Jaehyun settling down. 

“Me too. And when I heard those awful news about you I thought I was over” Jaehyun spoke, more than anything over Doyoung’s ear as they came together and shortened the remaining distance in between them to embrace him. He really yearned for the lulling sound of his pulse to take him back home, but he couldn’t quite trace it. He might be too agitated and pumped up himself to find it under the loud noise of his own. “Now I feel like melted gold is filling in the crack I had inside my chest”

“Don’t listen to it, we will report that I’m fine tomorrow and all those bitter memorials and headlines will go down. But tonight it’s for you only, I need to take my time with you properly and redeem myself for the lost time in which we should have been together”

Jaehyun looked at his boyfriend, setting his heart on having him all for himself for one night where everyone kept believing he was far away and gone. They would have time for longer explanations the day after. 

Doyoung had always been a tad smaller than Jaehyun himself, but still, he had broad shoulders and some kind of atmosphere that made him look remarkable. Not to mention, the prominent glance that dripped from the darkness of his irises, drawing Jaehyun towards him like a bee to a flower. 

“Sounds like a secret date between you and me”

“Are you in?”

“Absolutely”

“Then follow me"

Jaehyun was someone that didn't need much from Doyoung to get convinced and, after so much time, he gave up to the push of his hand right away. He barely attained to give Mark a shout telling him that he was going out before he was closing the door behind his back and following Doyoung down the stairs of the building like in a trance. 

The row of stairs seemed to him more like being descended while floating on a cloud, and all that he could smell was Doyoung's embriagating scent clashing against his skin and filling his senses.

They arrived at the front of the building. 

The night was only beginning and the incomplete ring of a pale and sharp moon was shining in the sky, above the sidewalk where Doyoung stopped by a… large, pitch black motorbike that rumbled loudly when he passed his legs upon the leather seat and activated the engine with a fiendish purr. 

“Hold on, you got a bike?” Stammered the younger of the pair, not really knowing how to take the information. He wasn’t scared of the vehicle, if so, he thought they were a cool thing to try, but he never expected Doyoung to take the lead with one of those. His mind flickered between being truthfully surprised about the new and sort of reckless aspect of his boyfriend, and just admitting to himself that he looked captivating on the back of that black iron horse. “Since when can you drive one of these?”

“Are you scared of hopping on?” teased Doyoung with what seemed to be a dark smirk, probably because of all the things his boyfriend could be teased about, being a coward was the most effective with reverse psychology. “I promise I won’t drop you” 

His gentleness seemed to have blurred away from him and given way to a more marbled fact of him. It made Jaehyun question what had he missed in between his disapparition and this night to feel the difference. 

He kept looking at him as the younger one hesitated what his next move would be. His eyes were a mesmerising shade of black, and his skin smooth and white, a stage of the colors of city lights to perform a sensual choreography. His cheeks were high, sharp, just like his eyes, nailed on him from behind the soft, rich locks of hair falling onto his forehead. 

“I know you won’t”

Jaehyun hadn’t been so sure of a statement for months, going onto the back of the motorcycle and cinching his arms around Doyoung’s waist, tucking his chin over his shoulder. With the renewed thrill of being close, almost as if this was a new person and not his years long boyfriend, his chest was jumping agitated and, embarrassed about it, he was on the verge of acquiring pink cheeks like in a dumb rom-com movie that he loved anyways. 

“You are up to the best night”

He giggled. “Doyoug, what got into y-”

Before he could finish, the other had moved the side stand and started the ride, moving into the driveway. 

The road was fresh, black and smooth even in the narrowest streets of the center. There weren’t green patches of parterres separating the different direction ways anymore, the only sprout of freshnes came out given by the, weeds growing in cracks between the pebbles, the rest of it was all a black and gray layout of a modern city full of neon and traffic. 

Doyoung dodged the stopped cars that were gathering in front of a red traffic light, quite skipping the rule of stopping behind the line to let the motor roar loud and sprint with the motorcycle like dogs unleashed. 

The air was hitting on Jaehyun’s face, messing with his brunette curls of hair and slipping through the overused set of jeans and plain tee that he had been wearing before Doyoung arrived. His skin was getting covered in the goosebumps of feeling free again, breathing all the oxygen he had been ignoring out there in the open space of an immense town that he couldn’t travel by foot in a whole night. 

He felt, at least for a second, so out of control and full of dreams about the future, that he would have spreaded his arms like a winged bird and pretended he was about to take off the fly. But he wasn’t that senseless, still. 

He squeezed his boyfriend's waist, out of excitement, and he smiled at him back, dark hair flying off his face as his eyes abandoned the road ahead for a second, only slightly, to show the unique glow of fire in his eyes to Jaehyun again.

Could Jaehyun covet him more? 

He felt he was going fast and faster, that his heart was beating like a tambourine, that his blood was running laps through his entire circulatory system and mixed with the adrenaline and endorphins in an explosive cocktail that Doyoung had carefully prepared for him. 

But when he looked at the speedometer he noticed that all of those chemicals mixing up in his brain were caused by the fact that they were literally going too fast. 

So much that he failed to grasp a gasp. 

“Doyoung! Are you out of your mind!?” he said, horrified. 

“What’s wrong, love?”

“What’s wrong? The speed!”

“Are you scared?”

“It’s not a cause of fear, it’s a cause of common sense!”

“I can’t slow down now”

“What do you even mean by that? Hit the brake”

“The dead travel fast, babe” 

Jaehyun’s lips parted, speechless. Something deep down inside him was spooked and took in the firm scenery of the city with an eerie view as his arms clenched around Doyoung and his nails clawed at the waistband of his jeans seeking protection. 

His chest was shook with the tremble of Doyoung’s body as he giggled, softened by Jaehyun’s needy search for him despite his contundent answer to his plea. 

In a sense, his brain had shut down and his skin had a small glow due to the unavoidable need of breaking a sweat. He was exuding all his humanity within a second of the ride, through a road he didn’t think he had traveled before, stomach contorting in a strange way that he still didn’t hate. 

Doyoung wasn’t, quite. 

Maybe Jaehyun really was in need of the different feelings of a person that weren’t just moping around and feeling anesthetized.

Slowly, he let his head fall back, back arching and hands tight on the dipping curves of Doyoung’s hips at the time the raging wind that crashed furious against them rocked his hair. He felt nestled by nothingness, a comfortable and entracing absence of something solid that made him sigh a tactile sound out. 

“Don’t lean too far” advised the honeyd-voice of his personal rider almost like an order. The contrast of his tone now was outstanding in comparison with the stubbornness of his previous intervention. “I meant it when I said I wouldn’t drop you, I don’t want you to get hurt”

Jaehyun came back to his upright position, chest clashing with Doyoung’s back, hearing his own laugh ring in his ears like bells, heartily. His face took a dive on Doyoung’s body, starting from the curve of his shoulder and going up to his neck. He probably shouldn’t be doing such a thing while they traveled a roadway at a couple thousand km/h in a furious motorcycle that grumbled like a beast under him, but his stupidity had taken over him with an impelling force. 

Eventually, the blur at the sides of their race turned more green and damp than the center of the city could be, making Jaehyun guess that they had entered the suburbs of the city. 

Thankfully, as the streets were narrower and shorter, Doyoung started slowing down the motor until they had stopped by a sidewalk with extensive patches of green grass. It wasn’t too hard to notice they belonged to houses’ gardens, some of them surrounded by flaky wooden fences.

“What are we doing here?” murmured Jaehyun. 

It was late, many of the residences had the lights off, and another must be totally empty due to the winter break, since not even the garden lamppost were throwing light to the surroundings. Families of neighborhoods like the one they stopped by tended to visit their grandparents in nearby villages when they had this kind of free days. 

“Wanna do something exciting?”

“With you?” he asked, a smirk present. 

“Sure”

“Then you must know the answer, love. Anything with you, anywhere”

“You remember our first kiss?” 

The question took Jaehyun by surprise, especially so when it went to his ears with the velvety tone of his lover, but he didn’t fail to get a flashing memory of the exact moment.

Doyoung had gotten off the bike, and in a swift move that Jaehyun hadn’t really caught with his eyes, he had gone closer to him, ice cold fingers creeping behind his neck, climbing on his neck and burying under the soft hair of Jaehyun giving him crazy chills all over his spine. 

He tried to think harder about his answer, attempting to ignore Doyoung’s free arm wrapping around his waist. 

“It was February. My birthday was near. We went out for a night walk that day but when you said you had to go to your house I asked you to not leave yet” he almost recited, reading out from his heart. Doyoung had started leaning over him, naggingly distracting, and with his breath condensing over his lips like morning dew. “So we went to my house together. Mark was out in the library, preparing for finals. We were in my room talking. It was very dark outside and in the room, because I had forgotten to switch the lights on after finishing watching a movie on my laptop. I blindly sought you. We kissed, in the dark” 

Doyoung’s small lips brushed Jaehyun, and there was nothing innocent about the bloom of the strong red burning over Jaehyun’s mouth, but in its place, it was like a lit match rubbing across his lips, intense, passionate and demanding. 

The world could be falling apart and Jaehyun wouldn’t notice while he surrendered to his boyfriend and drooped in between his arms. 

It felt even better than he remembered. 

His tongue stroked Jaehyun’s bottom lip sternly asking for access, which he allowed more than dutifully. It felt slippery, almost as if his saliva had turned stickier and sweeter in his absence, sinking Jaehyun in an inexplicable euphoria that ran across his body, tingling everywhere, like a powerful narcotic. 

It ended too soon for him. 

“You taste so sweet” howled Doyoung under his breath, getting back at pushing Jaehyun behind him, by his hand. 

“You haven’t answered me, where are we going?”

More than anything, his words sounded carefree.

“To the darkness, so I can kiss you tirelessly like the first time”

Yeah, the first time they kissed, it took them a while to stop, and the mere recall of the night could put Jaehyun into the love tone. 

"Are you going to give me missed up kisses?"

"All of them"

"Then hurry up, I woke up wanting this for a long time"

"Hush hush, love"

"Don't hush me, Doie" 

The older of the couple didn't stop to think. He moved to one of those cosy fences and gave a look over it to the garden. Jaehyun had started suspecting what the man was up to.

He noticed the scrutiny, looking at Jaehyun with a chuckle. 

"What?" 

"I never thought I would have to say this to you, but you are gonna get us arrested" 

"Don't worry, the house is empty, there's no one to report us" 

"You know that bringing a boy to the yard doesn't need to be literal?" 

He grinned, slowing a perfect row of white teeth under the shiny velvet of his lips.

But as he hesitated to follow after him, wondering what had gotten into his rather relaxed boyfriend that seemed like he wasn’t giving up to fatigue anytime soon, out of a sudden, the latter had perfectly planted his palms over the fence’s top and impulsed himself over it with an unbelievable jump. It was almost as if his weight had disappeared and his movements were free of any burden, resembling a wild animal chasing a prey.

Doyoung had disappeared behind the other side of the fence, and Jaehyun didn’t think that whatever was going on was strong enough to keep him away from his most wanted treasure that fast. 

It would be hard to explain, but despite his heart going miles per second and the palm of his hands being damp, he felt that his mind was in absolute calm and far to have any trust issues about Doyoung’s seemingly wild idea. It was as if he was hypnotized, the thread of fear still flowing in the back of his mind, but pushed to the very rear part of it, so he couldn’t quite grasp it. 

“Are you having second thoughts about me?”

“No”

He felt deeply compelled to prove Doyoung -or the feisty version of him that he had gotten back from nowhere- that that wasn’t the case. So trying to imitate his moves, he went straight to jump over the garden’s fence, resulting in not an equally graceful scene even though he had always been more athletic and muscular than his boyfriend. 

Maybe he was too caught in that emotional stress to coordinate his body parts in something else than making a fool of himself in front of him. After all, Doyoung had always told him that he found that clumsy and goofy side of him stupidly adorable. 

He didn’t worry too much about his unstable land, for that reason. 

For that matter, he couldn’t really complain about Doyoung’s choice. Maybe it was quirky, and a bit risky, but he was up to be a bit crazy for their second first date; and the view that his eyes were able to capture engrossed by the thick darkness of an empty garden only illuminated by the distant lampposts, was beautiful. 

The family that lived there must be somewhat wealthy, because the grass was fresh and green, and it didn’t have any raised up covering the houses' businesses from the neighbor’s second floor windows. Far up into the lawn, a cute path of stone tiles serpent towards the porch, alongside a big parterre with what looked like chamomile flowers to Jaehyun. However, the most eye catching item present was the garden L shaped sofa that was out there between the dry splash. There were a couple of trees to give height to the scenery and a bit of intimacy due to the leaves that flora. 

“Damn, Doyoung, this is beautiful” 

“Pretty boy needs pretty date, it’s nature” 

"You are flirting so hard now, no need, I'm already yours" 

As they advanced, with their feet sinking on the soft, tender grass of a private garden, Doyoung looked back to check on his lover. Maybe Jaehyun was hallucinating at this point and had drifted too much, but it seemed to him like Doyoung’s dark orbs were surrounded by a candent ring of red. 

"Oh, you are mine, you _shall_ be mine, and you and I are one forever" 

His hand pushed Jaehyun’s hip back, until he felt the rough bark of a tree. His fingers felt like sharp pieces of broken glass as they buried in Jaehyun’s warm and taut flesh, making him gasp and pant with surprise, but his exhalation didn't go too far, since Doyoung's lips were on his just as fast. 

Their tongues became intertwined with each other as they licked and their mouth kissed. Jaehyun felt the bubblimg of his blood inside him and the heat radiate from Doyoung's action pulling his hair despite his skin's real temperature being closer to an icicle, so his haste and passion rushed through him to bite down on Doyoung’s lip, tigging back a bit, enough to make it sting in a playful manner. 

The older one chuckled darkly. 

He moved his body even closer to Jaehyun, and his tongue came out to touch his very own lips, leaving a glossy trace upon the alluring red that covered them. Moving slowly, he kissed Jaehyun’s bottom lip, anf then licked around them until he plunged back in. 

The shockwaves of being a target of such complicated ministrations, trapped against the wood and Doyoung’s hard chest without a way out, were sinking Jaehyun into the most sexually provocative set of kisses he had ever had. He wasn't even done yet and he already wanted more and more. 

He was desperate, touch deprived and drunk on the sweet substance of Doyoung's saliva. 

Quite literally. 

His tongue was ablaze and his kiss became moany when Doyoung's hand ascended from his hips to his waist, not so accidentally raising up the thin woollen sweater of the youngest, leaving his happy trail to be caressed by the night wind.

"Hold me" mumbled Jaehyun, with a dazed voice that was barely audible from his own ears, as if he was far away from himself. He knew his mouth was open and moving to form words, but he was lost on something else. "Hold me tighter, Doie" 

He could barely think. 

Anything.

Nothing outside Doyoung. 

"You smell so good" corresponded the other in a groan. Somewhere in between those lines of action, Jaehyun had pulled up his leg to Doyoung's hips and wrapped him around the man to bring him closer. "Bet you taste amazing too"

"I…"

"Let me taste it"

If he was feeling Doyoung's lips gliding over him but he was able to talk, where was he kissing him? 

Jaehyun’s head has lolled back and rested against the tree's surface, eyes closed and head dizy. He felt the warmth of Doyoung's flexible tongue lapping against the underside of his jawline, eliciting sounds of keeness from the youngest one. 

He was sure that Doyoung could feek the fresh pulse of his heart under the tip of his tongue as it pumped through his carotid artery, hot, thick and full of pleasure. 

Had he answered Doyoung or was he only breathing fast and moaning in the air?

He watched the white wisp of his breath elevate in the cold of the night when he tried again. "Here?"

Doyoung hummed in response, sounding tense and hurried. "I can't get enough of the heat that comes from your skin, it makes me go feral. I want you, Jae, right now. I'm so heckin _hungry_ "

Jaehyun heard the words but his brain was silly. His laugh was messy, embriagated… he was off. 

"Let me know how much you need me, Doie"

His wet tongue traced a line up on his neck, making Jaehyun’s toes curl from bliss and anticipation. 

“You’ll see”

Doyoung’s beautiful hand grasped Jaehyun’s countenance steadily so he couldn’t recoil under the tingling sensations that were making his navel get a dock of electricity. 

He wouldn't have, anyways. 

Doyoung had stopped his lips near his throat, and then suddenly, Jaehyun’s lips parted at the acute sensation of a pair of puncturing needles biting down on his neck. He couldn’t tell if he yelled or moaned, he couldn’t say what he was feeling at the time he could hear his own skin breaking, in his eardrums, and the hotness of the prick going through his flesh. 

His boyfriend sucked on his flesh, avidly. 

He squirmed a little, but Doyoung held him in place, grounding him against the rough surface of the tree he had behind him. The youngest whimpered, pain and pleasure mixing rawly onto him. He felt light-headed, and he could swear the oxygen going to his brain was faltering a bit too much, but it was so delicious. 

“Doie…” he whimpered. 

His breath picked up, but it didn’t make it any better to calm down the strange feeling of a rush he was getting, growing exhausted but bordering an euphoric rush. His heartbeat went faster, as well, and his blood… it really felt hotter, like the drop that had break free and was rolling down his neck until it pooled in the dip of his collarbone. 

His knees were wobbly like sticks of butter. A fragment of his brain, lost in the back of it, was scared to fall over, so his fingers curled on Doyoung’s shoulders, crumpling his shirt in his fists. That time, he was sure of the sound he made, as his back arched and searched for more of Doyoung and whatever that insane pleasure he was giving to him was. 

It seemed like the move made him snap back to reality, for his eyelashes brushed against Jaehyun’s skin while he opened his eyes. 

“Make me stop”

“No”

“Jaehyun, come on, make me stop” he groaned. 

No, he didn’t understand why he was asking him for a thing like that. He shook his blunt head, heavily. 

“But I don’t want you to go away from me”

“You have to stop me for our own good, don’t you understand?” 

His lips traveled over the irregular line of red that had dripped down on his skin, and his hands clenched tighter on Jaehyun’s hips as if he was trying to hold an impending need back.

“It’s better to pass out in your arms... than waiting for you endless days again…” He finally said, incredibly knowingly for a second. 

Doyoung took half a step back to look at him. His eyes had a more gentle look now, not so void as his pupils searched unsettled for something in Jaehyun’s physic. His lips were the darkest of reds, as if they were covered with strawberry jam, and the youngest could see how hesitantly, with a tremble, his boyfriend stuck his tongue out and teased the flavour with a pointy tongue. As soon as it touched it, it hid in his mouth again.

He looked sort of frightened, but Jaehyun couldn’t understand why would his very best boyfriend be scared of touching him.

The floor seemed to sway under his feet, and then, he was facing the moon and embracing the darkness that swirled around him. 

Back in the shadows and without the touch of his boyfriend, he returned to be unsettled. The solitude was back, and so was the pain, with it. 

Like tripping and falling into an abyss, Jaehyun rolled back into one of his terrible nightmares. 

One in which he was trying to hold Doyoung, with his hands wrapped around his wrists, begging him not to leave again. 

Doyoung was giving him tender eyes in return, caressing his brunette hair gently, but his tenderness wasn't an excuse for Jaehyun to let him convince him that he was better off without him. 

By his other side, pulling back, were Mark and Yuta, teaming up in the argument that Doyoung was using against him. 

They didn't know. He couldn’t cope with another season without Doyoung, he just wanted to kiss him and breath in his scent, laugh with him, hear his voice and talk about the things that he only dared to share with him. 

How could he quit that. 

So many days spent by his side made him aware of how bad it would be to make those end. Maybe Doyoung’s heart had stopped beating, but as long as he truly loved him, and Jaehyun could see in his eyes he did, he wouldn’t let go. If his skin couldn’t get warm anymore, Jaehyun would make sure to set him aflame. 

_"It's a dream. It's a dream, it's a dream!"_

He repeated it out loud and tried to hold tighter on Doyoung. His nails scratched his arm but he didn't cut through the marble skin that now covered his forearms. 

Doyoung's fingers tried to lose Jaehyun’s own around his wrists with a gentle smile. He knew that face, trying to ease him. “You are going to get hurt, let go"

He shook his head. 

It hurted to be away for too long, he knew that by experience. When he missed him too bad he started to feel weak. And on the other hand, being close made him feel irrational, which felt much better in such a harsh world that never agreed with Jaehyun.

Not thinking, acting careless by Doyoung’s side felt way better than stopping to be aware of the things going around. He needed him to disconnect, like a little oasis of calm in his life. 

_"Jae…"_

The ghost of his body had a broken face. Jaehyun noticed how there was a blotch of red in the corner of his lip, where he put his fingers, collecting the color on his fingertips. He was dressed like a man of some history book picture, as if he had been years locked in a cave where time stopped and came out only to meet with him. 

_"No"_

_"Jae, love…"_

_"Don't try to push me away!"_

He was brought back to his senses by a sharp pain slashing at the side of his neck so he gasped, opening his eyes. His cheeks were wet and his body covered in a cold layer of sweat. 

It was so dark around him, but he was able to guess that he had been moved to the garden’s sofa, where he was laying and still dizzy, breathing heavily. 

"Jaehyun, you are having hallucinations" 

His ears buzzed. Even in the open night of winter he was radiating heat like an oven.

He tried to understand where the voice of his boyfriend came from, but there was an overwhelming pain extending from his neck to the rest of his body. Beneath the thin skin there were toxins bubbling up so bad and trying to take over his whole body. 

"Hey, hey, come back to me, love" 

He wanted to say something but he couldn't find the words, nor the ability to form them with his numb lips. His palm tried to reach for the source of the deep burn, but Doyoung’s cold fingers pressed against it faster. 

"Doie" he tried, voice slow and unclear.

"I'm here. I'm sorry" he tried to concentrate on his voice instead of the annoying heat, but it was hurtful too, since it sounded horrified. He never liked that blue color to take over Doyoung’s voice. 

"Why? What… happened?" 

A cloudy layer polluted his vision, but he saw his boyfriend's head leaning over him with his perfect face, calming his writhe as he let sink in his mind that Doyoung was still there. The pain was subsiding under the cold hands too. 

"I am so, so sorry" he repeated, voice taut. "I could have made a terrible mess" 

Jaehyun tried to sit up, looking for the embrace that could put down the sound of pain out of Doyoung, but the spinning in his head accelerated, growing dizzy and mostly dizzy. He couldn’t oppose to the hand that gently pushed him back down onto the soft cushions of the white sofa. 

He left his feet on the grass, trying to feel some steadiness under his body. 

Still, his prying eyes looked for Doyoung and awarded him with one of the best gentle smiles of his collection. One of those that made Jaehyun’s face be puffy and the dimples come out to his cheeks. 

The memories had begun to come back to his mind, and although they made him shudder, it was because his skin had tactile memory and could recall the spark of bliss shaking him. 

"You were hungry, Doie, are you satisfied now?" 

There was a pause.

"How can you ask me that?" He muttered under his breath, shaking his head. "I could have killed you"

"But you didn't" pointed Jaehyun out. He sounded all savant, almost cheeky, like a smart and overconfident child giving out an obvious answer to an adult. 

"Almost killing you doesn't sound ideal, either"

"It wasn't painful"

"It wasn't?" He asked with a speculative look slipping into his eyes, eyebrows furrowing first with confusion and next with curiosity.

Jaehyun shook his head. "Not really"

"How…?" 

"Warm, deep, drowsy and… this is going to be embarrassing, but there's a lot of pleasure to it when it builds up" 

"You are not being serious now" 

"I am!" He protested, turning a bit pink, even. "If you want me to be fair, it stings now, but it made me lose balance and groan back there. I could have more of it"

"No, seriously, how can you say that!?" Accused Doyoung. His eyes, suddenly, were furious byt the reaction didn't move Jaehyun a single inch from the opinion he stood at. From both of them, he had always been the stubborn boyfriend. "Aren't you even a little bit scared? Because I am scared of myself and what I could do to you if I'm out of myself for too long"

"That's why you are so late?" Mumbled Jaehyun, a small splinter of pain shooting in his heart at the memory. 

Doyoung stared down, at the grass. 

He was really beautiful. He had always been, but in that moment, the moon and the quietness that dominated the garden was giving him the perfect finish. His mouth was small and vivid like a ruby, containing the perfect color of his husky voice inside when he became silent. He had an ashen countenance with dark eyes and delicate lashes, and the high and firm bridge of his nose could get him in a museum.

His voice was just a soft murmur. "I didn’t mean to worry you, I-"

"Well, you did" finally dared Jaehyun. Swallowing the air back in his lungs and sitting up successfully that time. "And not only that, it hurt to be alone. I could barely reel a real conversation with you because we never coincided. I felt empty, and cold, and I really was worried that you were growing bored of me, the stupid piano teacher that was left in town. Not to mention the jealousy at the idea of you finding someone more interesting"

"Please, forgive me. But look at what I have become" 

"What even happened to you? You only look more beautiful than when you left!"

Doyoung looked at him, speechless, thinking for a moment. His jaw was clenched.

"Only your blood satisfies me like this" he murmured, ashamed with his own words. "The smell and the taste… it's crazy for me, it drives me wild when I'm hungry"

"Hot"

"Jaehyun, please" he puffed, harsh, trying to make him see reason.

Yet, the younger couldn’t.

Sitting sideways on the sofa, he wasn’t far enough from Doyoung to ignore the sweet and familiar scent of his breath in his own face. Sweet like always with the addition of a ferrous key. 

"But you love me" he said, as sure of himself as he had been from the past months in his absence. 

Instinctively, he leaned in closer.

Doyoung stood in front of him, with his leg folded under his bottom and his elbow prompted over the back of the seat, motionless, whilst Jaehyun closed the gap in between them to join their lips.

Offensively slow and long, he guided his hands to Doyoung's slender neck and, unintentionally sensual, let them roll down to his chest. 

"That can't change" granted Doyoung, evoking a ravishing curl on Jaehyun’s mouth. 

“Then what should change the way I correspond it? Everyone in this life is bound to change sometimes, otherwise we will be pretty stuck in the same place forever, and that’s certainly so boring. I know you wouldn’t hurt me, not before and not now, so what else could I desire? As long as you accept me, I’ll stick around” 

“It sounds as foolish as I could expect from my one and only Jaehyun” 

After what seemed like an eternity, Doyoung’s features seemed to soften and agree with him.

“A flaw of many” 

Doyoung clicked his tongue, cheered and sarcastic. That sounded much like him too. That and the chaste kiss he pressed on Jaehyun’s lips to make his point go across his thick skull. 

“Flaw, you say…” he chuckled darkly. Then his eyes rose to his face again with a shadow casting over their blackness, thumb caressing the velvety skin of Jaehyun’s bottom lip with a frail wave of his hand. “And what when I get hungry again?”

Jaehyun moved his body closer to the older one, almost sitting on his legs. His fingers trailed over the collar of his sweater, pulling down from one side almost imperceptibly and angling his head to the side so Doyoung could read his soundless answer without problems. 

Probably he couldn’t see it himself, but his implicit meaning showed out harder with the couple of circle marks on his neck centimeters away from each other, still surrounded by a purplish red halo due to the recent incision. 

Doyoung’s eyebrows shot up under his ink-black bangs, a little bit condescending, just as his grin, a second before he inclined his head slowly over the exposed skin of Jaehyun’s throat, trembling under the beam of distant lamp posts, until his cold lips brushed against it.

Involuntarily, the need for shivering increased for the youngest, and his hands closed around his biceps with excitability taking away his reasoning. His breathing went erratic again, and it didn’t calm down when Doyoung’s lips molded against the tender flesh under his jaw and gave him an unhurried, adoring open-mouthed kiss.

When he leaned away, Jaehyun had to remind himself to catch his breath.

"Air-headed enough to stick around through thick and thin"

Jaehyun rested his head against the back of the sofa, still feeling a bit dizzy and honestly tired. It was late, and about a quarter of his energy had been sucked out of him for one reason or another, so his eyes felt heavy. 

He wondered if he could sleep without being a prey for nightmares again. 

“Doyoung” he called, as his consciousness threatened to leave him once more. “Are you going to be here when I wake up? I have recurrent nightmares lately, and I don’t think I can’t stand it if you leave again while I’m not watching”

“Don’t fear that, my love, I'm not going to leave you” he murmured, his melodic voice lulling him more and more into a doze, eyes closing for the weight they had acquired. “I'm here and I’ll take care of you, everytime, keeping vigil over your sleep… after all… I’m not able to sleep ever again”

**Author's Note:**

> Here is my [ twitter](https://twitter.com/leechailatten)!


End file.
